Paging Doctor Cobra
by GemNika
Summary: A collection of stories set in the House!Cobra Series. In which Cobra is a genius doctor who would rather spend his time evading his boss and terrorizing his best friend, than giving someone an overdue flu shot. (House & Fairy Tail Fusion Fic)
1. Catch Me If You Can

**A/N: All of you can blame** _ **indraaas**_ **for making me do this shit. I wrote a thing, and we both fell in love with it. And while I know I should be working on updating two prompts from CoLu Week (because you guys are eager for them), or even my main stories… Fuck it.**

 **There will be more chapters of this, but it's not going to be in my rotation. Just whenever I feel like adding to it. More info about the Challenge that inspired this thing is at the end.**

 **Also, one last note. I'm obsessed with** _ **House**_ **. Hugh Laurie makes me swoon, guys. Because that's the only real point of reference I have for how a fucking hospital works, let's just call this the House!Cobra Series. For those familiar with** _ **House**_ **, I'm sure you'll get a kick out of the FT characters thrown into these roles. Hopefully.**

 **Enough rambling, let's get to this fucking story!**

 _ **Indraaas**_ **, this is your present for being such a fucking enabler. I love you.**

* * *

 _ **Catch Me If You Can**_

* * *

If there was one thing Doctor Cobra Vivas excelled at, it was avoiding his boss. This was second only to his ability to diagnose the strangest amalgamations of symptoms with a relatively low fatality rate. Just after his ability to avoid the Dean of Medicine, was annoying his closest friend, the Head of Oncology.

Considering he'd just finished with a case - a wholly intriguing presentation of toxic epidermal necrolysis, if he did say so himself - Cobra wanted nothing more than to kick back in his office and relax. His shows were already set to record at home, and he didn't want something to come up and interrupt him while he was in the middle of watching his stories. He'd sent his team off to do… something. He wasn't sure what Loke and Virgo were doing, but he did know that his precious little protegé, Wendy, was off learning things. Silly little med student that she was.

She was wound tighter than a toe-tag on a two-week old river corpse. Ah, he remembered those days. He didn't miss them.

But a digression was in order, and he needed to focus. Because Jellal was looking for him. Just like he did every couple days, because Cobra was adamant about not ever doing his "required" clinic hours. He hated the fucking clinic. The people were boring, and if he had to hear another complaint of _Oh, my two year old's ear hurts_ , he was going to throw an uncomfortable lobby chair through a window.

 _Of course the toddler's ear would hurt, it's a growth spurt. Go to your fucking pediatrician._ That was what he would've said, if Jellal hadn't literally walked into an exam while he'd been saying nearly the same thing. The lecture afterward was _not_ worth three hours of his time.

The paperclip trebuchet that now sat proudly on his desk, however, was.

Cobra shook his head and crouched beneath his desk when he heard footsteps. Familiar footsteps. The devil was coming. It was only with years of practice that he was able to prop himself up with his hands and feet wedged into the sides of his desk, so he was no longer on the floor. Jellal couldn't see him in the small opening beneath it if he was a fucking spider monkey.

Luckily, only one person knew of this trick of his, and she was sworn to secrecy on the matter. Then again, Cobra also knew that the last thing she wanted was to admit that she'd spent three whole months being dragged to one store after another while he quite literally tested each and every desk in stock for this exact purpose.

The looks on those poor employees' faces had been priceless.

The footsteps faded, and Cobra waited another 45 seconds. With _Mississippis_. Then, and only then, did he silently lower himself to the floor again. And once he was on all fours, Cobra knew that he needed to get the hell out of his office. If his team came back and saw that he wasn't around, they wouldn't come looking for him. Now that he thought about it, he'd sent Loke and Virgo off to find them a new case to work on. Someone would call him if they found something.

He looked toward the door, and sighed. He couldn't leave that way. Jellal was still lurking around somewhere, and where was the fun in being found so easily?

No, Cobra needed another way out. His head turned toward the window while he patted his pockets. He had his phone with him. That was all he needed for where he was going. He made his way to the window and frowned as he carefully pushed it open. He really needed a balcony. One that could connect his office to the one next door. Then he could just walk out there, hop over the divider, and take his ass inside. But _no_. Jellal nixed that idea every time he brought it up.

Something about unnecessary spending and hospital donors, and… Cobra hadn't really paid much attention after Jellal said no. He wasn't all that serious about the balcony. But if he _had been_ , he would've found a way to get one.

Cobra hoisted himself up onto the windowsill, then leaned out slightly to peer down at the ground that was four stories below him. There was a six-inch ledge running along the building, but that was it. Shit. He really didn't want to do this.

Then again, clinic duty was worse. He had to do this. There was just no other way to avoid working.

So, he sucked in a breath and crawled out the window, then slowly slid up the wall. He was not going to look down. He was _not_ going to…

"Fuck…" He looked down. The sudden tightening in his gut made him wonder whether he was more freaked out or exhilarated by the prospect of plummeting to his death.

He wasn't going to dwell on it though, because the last thing he needed was for some Debbie Do-Gooder to see him up here and think someone was trying to kill himself. But Cobra didn't want to kill himself. Not unless he was forced to go back down to the first floor and deal with those common colds and overdue flu shots.

"Oh yeah," he muttered while shuffling further from his window. "I need to get a flu shot."

He was silently thanking the weather systems for not sending some ridiculous gusty wind his way. His foot didn't slip. He made it across the fifteen feet between his window and the one next door, and he only stopped one time when he felt his phone vibrating. Cobra paused to carefully pull his phone from his pocket.

Wendy. Wendy was calling him. So he answered it and made himself as comfortable as could be while he stood on a six-inch ledge forty feet off the ground. "Westshore Pizzeria."

" _So, the funniest thing happened,"_ Wendy said.

"Did it, now?" That was an interesting way for her to begin a conversation with him. Usually, Wendy was either a mess on the phone over a case or some assignment of hers… Or she wasn't calling him at all. Normally, the latter. She never called him.

" _You're not busy, are you?"_

"Nah, I'm just hanging around," he said. Cobra tipped his head back to look up at the sky. What a lovely shade of blue.

" _Well, I was coming back to the hospital from class,"_ she said. _"You know, because you told me that I had to shadow Loke when he went into surgery this afternoon."_

"Sure," Cobra said. He didn't remember that at all. Well, it was a little familiar, he supposed. He said a lot of things to his team.

" _And I saw something that I thought you might find interesting."_

That had his attention. Cobra pressed the phone more tightly to his ear, his brows pushing together as he ripped his gaze away from the sky. "I'm listening." Wendy never bothered him with things that weren't important in some way. She knew that a sure way to get his attention was to promise him some tantalizing bit of information.

" _There's someone standing outside your office."_

"Is it Jellal?" he groaned. "Ugh, he's so persistent."

" _No, I mean outside your window,"_ she laughed. _"Look down."_

He frowned and looked at the ground. And there she was, on the ground, looking up at him with her phone to her ear. And he knew for a fact that it was Wendy, because she was the only person in this whole hospital with such long blue hair that was always pulled up into pigtails, with her bright pink argyle sweater and professional beige slacks on beneath her crisp white coat. "I don't know what you're talking about."

" _I saw nothing,"_ she said. _"I haven't seen you all day. I can only assume you're doing this to get away from Dr. Fernandez, for reasons I don't wanna know."_

He was clearly training her well.

" _Just know that this means I have something to hold over your head,"_ she said. Fuck, was he training her too well? _"I won't tell a soul about your window escape, but you owe me a favor of my choosing. No questions asked."_

Cobra sighed heavily into the phone. He couldn't even be upset over this sudden turn of events. Or owing the little med student a favor of some sort. "Nothing illegal."

" _Unacceptable. You make us break and enter constantly."_

"Nothing that can get me put in jail for more than a night," he countered. No, he was not above bartering.

She was silent as she mulled it over. _"Fine. Enjoy your anarchy, Dr. Cobra. I've got a surgery to watch."_ She hung up the phone after that and he watched her walk toward the building until she disappeared from his sight.

Damn her. He sighed again and slid his phone into his pocket, then leaned to his left just enough to peek into the window that was his destination. All clear. The Head of Oncology was sitting at her desk and the door was open. But someone was leaving. He couldn't be sure who it was - not that it really mattered anyway - but he still waited until the door closed entirely before pushing her window open and hopping inside onto her dark blue couch.

"Cobra, what the actual shit-"

"No time." He dashed for the door and locked it, then drew the blinds on the little window beside the door just to be on the safe side. There was no way to be sure that a locked door would stop Jellal from coming in here, though, so Cobra needed to make sure he had enough time to run out through the window again.

Of course, there wasn't a whole lot in the way of options for proper barricading, so he had to use the only viable piece of furniture. The desk. He turned toward the desk and grinned at his blonde friend's bewildered stare. "Hey," he said by way of greeting. He came around the desk to stand next to her, then pushed.

"Damnit, Cobra," Lucy growled. "What are you doing with my desk?"

"Blocking the door," he grunted. Fuck, why was her desk so heavy? Oh, right. Because it was all wood. None of that flimsy Ikea bullshit for her. Of course not. It took several minutes to get the desk wedged against the door, but Lucy didn't move to stop him. She just stared. Once he was upright, Cobra turned toward her again.

"Would you care to explain why you just swept in through my window and blocked my door with _my_ desk?"

"Well, I couldn't really bring my own desk in here just to block your door," he said. "It never would've fit through the window."

Lucy sighed and dropped her head to her hands. "Cobra…"

"I'm clearly running from the Yakuza," he said with a smirk. "They knew that there's only one entrance to my office, so I had to use the window. And I'm sure they'll think to come looking for me here as well, because everyone knows that you're my main squeeze."

"Oh shut up," she laughed. "Main squeeze… This isn't the '80s, and we're not in med school anymore."

He shrugged. "Their words, not mine."

"Your words, you liar," she snickered. Cobra ignored her and walked over to the couch sitting under the window. He kicked out one leg and dropped onto the comfortable, worn in cushions with a contented hum. "Oh, are you comfortable now?"

"Immensely," he chuckled, closing his eye. "You have no idea how happy I am that you kept Davenport." When they'd been roommates during their residency, this couch was the only thing they could afford in the way of actual furniture - aside from their beds. Lucy had gotten custody of it when he moved out.

"Why do you keep calling it that?"

"You're the one who named it," he shot back. Her and her stupid couch humor. And her stupid whiskey that had turned him into a giggly little bitch who agreed to anything.

"You know what? I don't even care why you're here," she finally said. "I've got charts to read through, so… behave."

Cobra's eye slid open to watch as Lucy rolled her chair across the room and over to her desk. She didn't even try to move it back to where it belonged. She just accepted this as her new normal for the time being - because he _would_ move it back for her eventually, since there was no way she could move it herself, and he was really hoping to avoid climbing out the window again. She was silent after that while putting on her (as she called them) "snazzy" wing tipped reading glasses with rhinestones on the corners, then got to work on her cancer charts.

It was boring. So, Cobra pulled out his phone and scrolled through his apps. The little green square with a singing rooster was calling to him. With a devious smirk, he tapped the icon and waited for it to load. Moments later, Cobra shrieked. Lucy was so startled the chart in her hand went flying into the air. "Mmmnap!" Cobra yelled.

She whirled around in her chair and glared at him. "What are you doing?!"

He frowned when her voice caused the chicken to jump at the wrong time. It fell into a pit and died. "Bitch," he muttered. "You killed my chicken."

"What?!"

He turned the phone toward her. "Chicken Scream. You scream and the chicken jumps. It's actually pretty addicting." Wendy had made the mistake of showing it to him two weeks prior. He'd been torturing the whole team with it ever since. But he'd yet to do it to Lucy, and that just wouldn't do at all.

So Cobra kept playing the game, screaming when necessary. He changed it up by humming a single tone and making it louder and softer to adjust the chicken's jumping height.

It drove Lucy insane. He knew it did. That was why he kept going, even when she gathered the chart's contents from the floor and got back to work. Even when she started tapping her pen on the desk with that oh-so familiar _If you don't stop, I'll tie you down and wax your taint like I did ten years ago, motherfucker_ rhythm, he kept going.

"Why are we even friends?"

He smiled at her when she turned toward him again. She knew exactly why they were friends. He'd seen her sitting at the bar, drinking her god-awful martini, and watched as she turned down the same guy over and over again. Cobra had been ready to swoop in and save the day - maybe get a phone number out of it, if he played his cards right - and he'd been utterly baffled by her cold-clocking the persistent ass who wouldn't leave her alone. He'd watched the bartender give her some ice for her hand, and when Cobra had tried to pull the _Let me take a look, I'm a doctor_ card, she'd laughed in his face and called him out on his bullshit. He hadn't realized that she was the girl who sat dead center in his Medical Embryology class, probably because she hadn't been that oversized grey sweater and sweatpants.

They'd been instant friends because of it. She was a patient person, far more patient than anyone Cobra had met before. She laughed at his jokes, and listened to his wild ideas at two in the morning. And she was immensely forgiving… and willing to bail him out of jail on the off chance he got arrested.

He was pretty sure that he owed her a few grand from the last two years alone.

But it wasn't all one-sided. He gave her a silent shoulder to cry on when one of her patients died. He listened to her ramble on and on about the stupidity of parents who denied their children chemotherapy in favor of going for some whack-job's homeopathic "miracle cure" instead. Cobra was in tune with Lucy enough that he knew when she was having a shitty day before even dropping by her office - the nurses and their gossip also helped immensely - so he made sure to grab her favorite artery-clogging burger, onion rings, and strawberry milkshake from Uncle Bubba's Burgers two blocks from the hospital before tip-toeing into her office.

By the look in her eyes, how they rolled back while she shook her head at him, he knew that she wasn't mad at him anymore. If she'd ever really been mad at him to begin with. Patient as a fucking saint. No wonder she'd decided to go with treating cancer patients.

Cobra went back to his game, screaming into the phone to make the little chicken jump.

Ten minutes later, Lucy's head dropped to her desk in aggravation when he started screaming to the tune of Led Zeppelin's "Immigrant Song."

" _Come_ to the land of _ice_ _and_ snow!" Cobra screeched.

"Oh my god, shut up!"

Cobra chuckled and restarted the level. "If you like pina _coladas_ , and _getting_ caught in the _rain_!" His eye slid over to find her smiling helplessly at him again. "Something _something_ and someth-"

"Oh, move over!" Lucy dropped her pen on the desk and stormed over to the couch. Cobra turned onto his side, giving her just enough room to lay down with her back against his chest. "If you're going to sing my favorite song, you'd better do it right."

He sighed when she wiggled to get more comfortable, pressing herself flush against him just like she'd done countless times over the years on this very couch. Of course he knew all the words to that stupid song. She'd sung it every day for two years, and forced him to endure her caterwauling constantly when they'd been roommates.

"Now, how do I do this?" she asked.

"Trial and error," he said. Cobra wrapped his arm around her and held his phone in front of her face. Her hand slid up and she tapped the play button, then started quietly humming her favorite song about almost-infidelity.

Jellal never found Cobra that day for his clinic hours. He'd just left Lucy's office, on a search for Cobra, when the Head of Diagnostics crept through her window. And Cobra and Lucy spent hours playing that chicken game, curled up together on the old blue couch in her office.

* * *

 **Over on Tumblr, there was a fun little Tropes Challenge that I participated in. Send two tropes and a pairing, and the requestee has to say how they'd write a story that combines all the elements. Well, a certain** _ **someone**_ **\- who is the god of all CoLu Hospital AUs - sent my ass a request for… you guessed it… CoLu Hospital AU (and locked in a room together).**

 **Also, the songs referenced in this story can be found on youtube:  
** Led Zeppelin - Immigrant Song  
watch? v=y8OtzJtp-EM

Rupert Holmes - Escape (Pina Colada Song)  
watch? v=TazHNpt6OTo


	2. CoLu Week 2019: Day 2, Legal

**A/N: And now we're on Day 2 of CoLu Week! I'm sure some of you are missing these all being posted in one story, but I just couldn't bring myself to think up brand new one-shots. I figured the best way to kick my writing self in the ass to get to work was to use plotted chapters for existing stories (with the exception of one story that's entirely new this year).**

 **So, I hope y'all don't mind popping around from one story to the next as these days pass.**

 **Also, please keep in mind that this is a Slice of Life-ish kinda thing. I'll do what I can to make sure things are chronological, but I make no promises on that front! With that in mind, please assume (unless I put it in the author's note), that each chapter is happening at some point in time after the previous chapter. It may not necessarily be** _ **directly**_ **after, though. In this chapter's case, it's been a few months since chapter 1.**

 **Okay, now that that's out of the way, let's get on with the chapter!**

* * *

 **Day 2** _ **  
Legal**_

* * *

Doctor Cobra loved puzzles. He loved them almost as much as he loved his motorcycle. Lucy called it his midlife crisis, and named it Kinana. He thought she needed to have a fucking CT to check for brain damage. But regardless of how much he loved puzzles, even he had limits.

They weren't the ethical limits most people placed on themselves - or allowed society to place on them. What it boiled down to was interest. He found Rubik's Cubes boring, so he didn't try to solve those puzzles; besides, he'd solved one once, so what was the point in doing it again? The result was going to be the same every time. But medicine… Diagnosing diseases with symptoms that had no apparent connection… He loved those.

What he didn't love was having a med student shove a file in his face with that look of determination. Especially not when the only real symptom was inflammation in the throat.

"You've heard of the common cold, right?" he drawled, shoving the file back at Wendy. "Don't waste my time."

"The patient's tonsils are swollen," she said quickly when he turned to walk down the hall and away from the cursed Clinic area. The last thing he needed was for Jellal to see him.

"Tonsillitis, then," he said. "Corticosteroids will reduce the swelling. Good to go."

"And she's having stomach pains."

"Maybe she ate some bad shrimp," Cobra said. He turned left and started jogging up the stairs. It was the only way to get some exercise in on a regular basis, especially since Lucy had banned him from climbing into her office window again. "Allergic reaction would explain the swollen throat, too."

"She's not allergic to shellfish," she said. "Doctor Cobra, please…"

He paused when she grabbed his sleeve, turning toward her on the landing. Her deep chocolate eyes burned with something deeper than just the standard _I have to prove myself to my boss_ determination. This girl had moxie. She had guts, being so bold like this. "Epstein-Barr," he finally said.

"She doesn't have mono," she deadpanned.

"How would you know?" he asked. His eye narrowed when she glanced away from him and fidgeted. Sure, Wendy was a chronic fidgeter, but this was different.

"Mono doesn't last nine months," she said.

"Stomach pain points to an enlarged spleen. Scan-"

"Her last doctor already ruled it out," she said.

"Then that doctor's an idiot."

"I highly doubt Doctor Porlyusica is an idiot," Wendy hissed.

Damn. He should have seen that one coming. And the venom in her voice. With Wendy being the granddaughter of that broom-wielding whack job, he was surprised she didn't bring out cleaning supplies of her own to whack him over the head. But he knew Doctor Porlyusica was solid. She'd been the hardest professor he'd ever had in college. If it hadn't been for a couple lucky breaks, he would have failed her class.

Did that mean she was out of the classroom and practicing again?

Suddenly, Wendy's eyes narrowed and she smirked up at him. He didn't like that look one bit. Please, let this not be a case of _I'll tell my grandma you won't take the case_. Please…

"You owe me a favor," she said. "Remember? No questions asked. And nothing so illegal that you spend more than a night in jail. I'm cashing in."

Cobra was sure he could wriggle his way out of this one, but it had been months since Wendy had witnessed his daredevil escapade in scaling the hospital to get to Lucy's office. And she hadn't said a word to anyone about it. Just this once, he was going to make good on a deal without making a stink about it.

With a heavy sigh, he put his hand out for the case file. "Fine… but you'd better hope this isn't mono; otherwise, you'll have wasted your favor."

Wendy beamed up at him, bouncing on the balls of her feet. "Thank you, Doctor Cobra."

She turned to rush back to the elevator on the first floor, presumably to find their new patient and have her moved to another floor, and he frowned. "Why is this patient so important to you?"

Wendy smirked, her pigtails fluttering behind her. "You like a good puzzle, don't you?" she asked. "You figure it out."

Cobra grinned when she disappeared down the stairs. He ignored the file while walking up to the next floor. He did like a good puzzle. Diagnosing their patient would probably be a breeze, but figuring out why his little protegé was so fixated on making sure this patient was seen by him? Now _that_ was a puzzle he couldn't wait to solve.

* * *

The patient wasn't an easy fix. She'd gone from dizzy and disoriented, to stuttering and paralyzed down half of her body. And she was young, so all of the ideas he and the team came up with were having a negative effect on Wendy because of the fact that they were death sentences. It was just a matter of how _much_ of a death sentence it was. Maybe a few months, or maybe ten years.

Cobra wasn't nearly as interested in the case as he was by Wendy's insistence that she be in the room every time someone talked to the patient.

Now, he rarely went to see patients. He knew that his team was going to get the best history they could to work from, otherwise it could result in the patient's death. And not being around the patients kept him unbiased. If he didn't meet them, then there was no chance of possibly becoming emotionally invested in their survival. But that day, he had to see the patient. It was late, and he was waiting for Lucy to finish up with some last minute cancer bullshit. He didn't fault her for it. She'd just lost one of her pediatric patients an hour ago, and she was stuck consoling the parents.

Since it was nearly midnight, the floor was relatively calm. A few nurses joked quietly with one another at the desk while gathering files and entering information. That little blue-haired woman from administration wheeled her computer down the hall, most likely heading toward a patient's room to get their insurance information.

Cobra's steps slowed as he reached the patient's room. The light was on and the blinds were mostly closed. If he peeked in at just the right angle, he could see a sliver of the bed. That was how he saw their patient for the first time with her long magenta hair hanging down in low pigtails. It was how he saw Wendy sitting on the edge of the bed, with her little white lab coat discarded next to her when she should have been gone for the night.

Wendy lifted a brush and smiled as she pulled it through the patient's hair. She talked, even though their patient was unconscious.

His brows drew together when he saw Wendy lean forward and kiss the patient's cheek. He was prone to seeing the worst in people - a trait that Lucy was constantly on his ass about - but there was something different here. Even with only one eye, he was perceptive enough to notice how Wendy held the patient's hand, ran her thumb over a simple silver band on the patient's ring finger.

"Lurking doesn't suit you."

Cobra smirked at the familiar voice off to his right. "How many times have I told you not to walk up in my blind spot?" he chuckled. He turned to find Lucy giving him a tired smile, then her attention shifted to the room holding his patient.

"I'm surprised it took you this long," she said.

He turned back to look at his little med student and the patient. Wendy pulled out her phone and started typing. "This long for what?"

Lucy breathed out a nearly silent laugh. He was sure it was all she could muster after the day she'd had. "You really should read your patients' files more closely," she said. "That woman in there is Wendy's wife."

That couldn't be possible. He would've noticed if her last name was the same as Wendy's. And he knew that Wendy had put on her paperwork with the hospital that she wasn't married. That could mean one of two things. Either she'd lied on the paperwork - and he couldn't see her lying about something like that, regardless of his own opinion of people and their relationship with lying - or she'd gotten married _after_ filling out the paperwork. And since she'd only been working with his team for a few months by that point, that had to mean it was relatively recent.

"I wondered why you weren't at the wedding," Lucy said. "Maybe she wanted things to remain professional, and that's why she didn't invite you?"

So it was very recent. Recent enough for Wendy to have invited Lucy. Did that mean she'd asked the rest of the team as well? Cobra snorted. "I told her I was busy," he lied. He knew it was a lie. Lucy probably knew it was, too.

"It's unethical for her to continue treating her wife," she said.

Cobra shook his head and finally looked away from Wendy and her constant texting, from the unconscious patient whose vitals were normal. He started walking away from the room and listened as Lucy fell in step beside him. "She hasn't made any stupid calls," he reasoned. "If anything, she's being more cautious than normal."

"That's not necessarily a good thing, Cobra."

He shrugged and pressed the button for the elevator that would take them down to the parking garage. "Even if she's mostly useless for this case, I've still got Loke and Virgo."

"You say that, until it becomes a life or death decision, and then she hesitates to treat and her wife _dies_."

Cobra sighed as the elevator doors opened. They stepped inside, and once the doors had closed again, he pulled Lucy into his arms. "Breathe," he whispered into her hair. "This isn't about Wendy right now."

She was rigid in his arms, but he knew the breakdown was coming. She always lost her cool when one of her children bit the dust. Lucy and her husband hadn't had much in the way of luck when it came to having kids of their own, so he knew that she cared about her cancer kids even more. She needed them to live, to have lives that were full and happy. She wanted to be just a small blip in the radar of their existence, easily forgotten with the passage of time, and remembered as nothing more than a faceless doctor who helped them fight back against their disease.

That was how she saw it, at least.

"I don't wanna be alone," she whispered.

"Isn't your-"

"He's not home," she said. "I already called. He's down at the precinct, and he's saying it'll be a long night."

Ah, the downside of all downsides for her marriage to a detective. Lucy normally had pretty regular hours, but her husband's were all over the place. On the nights where she was stuck at the hospital - usually because she was busy with visiting her patients before they kicked the bucket - it was iffy on whether or not she'd even get to see her husband for days on end.

And she wondered why they weren't able to have kids. From what Cobra remembered from sex ed, you needed two people to do the deed.

They stood in silence as the elevator continued its path down to the garage. Cobra didn't let her free from his grasp, instead holding her tightly as a reminder for her that he was there if she needed him. And he knew that she did need him.

"I know you hate the motorcycle," he said as the elevator finally dinged and the doors opened. Lucy stepped back and looked up at him. "But you can't be trusted to drive right now."

"Says the one who lost his eye in a car accident."

"I took rebar to the face from the passenger seat," he chuckled. "That accident wasn't my fault."

Lucy winced and lowered her head. "Have I mentioned how sorry I am about that?"

"At least once a month for the past five years," he said. Cobra wrapped an arm around her shoulders and led her from the elevator, toward his motorcycle.

She was in no shape to drive, much like the night that she'd sworn she was fine to drive away from her father's funeral. If he'd been more adamant, more of a dick and less concerned with her delicate mental state, the accident wouldn't have happened. She wouldn't have been distracted on the winter-slick road. She wouldn't have slammed on the brakes too late, slid over black ice, and flown through guardrails on the highway and over an embankment. Right into a construction yard.

Cobra could still remember how terrified he'd been as the car went airborne, and how his arm naturally went out to keep her pressed against the seat all the way up until his non-seatbelt-wearing ass flew through the windshield as soon as the front grill of her SUV hit the ground.

The impact had knocked him out. Or maybe it had been the overwhelming pain from the rebar jamming itself into his eye socket. From what Lucy told him, she'd crawled out of the overturned vehicle, broken leg be damned, and dragged herself over to his unconscious body. She'd cried over him, thinking he was dead, even while she checked for a pulse and called 911. She'd been hysterical by the time an ambulance showed up, and still… she'd kept her cool enough to make sure he was alright until the EMTs took her away.

And when Jellal realized that Cobra's emergency contact was in surgery herself, having the clean break in her femur repaired, he'd taken over as a medical proxy until Lucy was capable of making decisions for her best friend. She wasn't the one to blame for Cobra's eye being removed. And she wasn't to blame for the metal plate that now took up residence in the empty socket to keep his skull from crumbling. Those decisions had rested with the Dean of Medicine, and he knew they'd been the right ones.

But Lucy was a master of holding onto guilt, and he knew that every time she looked at him, she was reminded of how her decision to drive away from her father's funeral had resulted in him losing his eye.

"If I'd worn a seatbelt, things would've been different," he said softly. "Don't beat yourself up over it."

She let out a quiet sigh, nodding her agreement. Well, he knew she was silently telling herself to just let it go, but that was close enough. "I'm not getting on that deathtrap," she said.

Cobra chuckled. "I have a motorcycle license," he said, "Not a normal one, remember?"

"Because you can't pass the vision test for the DMV," she groaned. Well, she didn't have to rub it in. And he probably _could_ pass it by that point, now that he'd learned to compensate for only having the one eye. He'd just never taken the time to do it.

"The weather's fine," he said, all but dragging her toward the bike parked in a handicap spot. Ah, the perks of being considered legally blind. With his field of vision being around 120 degrees, he fit the criteria for having the disabled plate on his bike. "And I only had to scrape a couple bugs out of my teeth this morning."

"Jerk," Lucy laughed. She waited for him to pull out the spare helmet he kept for her - considering she was the only one he really allowed to ride with him - then secured it on her head.

"And yet, you still love me," he said, straddled the seat.

"Eh, you're alright."

* * *

"Is this even legal?" Virgo asked.

"It's called plausible deniability," Cobra said. He frowned at the syringe in his hand while puncturing the medication lid. "You know better than to ever ask me that question."

Loke tightened his hold on Wendy, who was still struggling to get free so she could stop Cobra from injecting her wife with the medication that would, hopefully, be the treatment Chelia needed. "Forget legal, I highly doubt this is ethical," Loke growled. "Wendy, relax."

"Tests take time. Treatment's quicker."

"You _just_ wanted to do a biopsy of her spleen," Wendy shouted.

"Which you refused," Cobra said, rolling his eye. "The benefits far outweigh the risks, but since we can't test anything without you or Jellal putting the nix on it, we're gonna have to go right to treating."

"She could bleed to death if you biopsy her spleen!" she screeched. "You know she could! I won't let you kill my wife because you have to solve some stupid puzzle!"

"Do you see me with a biopsy needle?" he drawled.

"You _could_ lose your medical license for this," Virgo said as she took the syringe from him and prepared to inject it into the port in Chelia's IV bag. He always found it so strange that she was willing to lose her own medical license - or to take the fall for him in general - so he could keep on practicing medicine. Virgo had told him before that he was a much more valuable doctor than her.

He did not agree with her assessment.

"If I let that stop me every time someone said it, I never would've gotten the damn thing to begin with," he chuckled. "Go ahead."

Jellal rushed into the room just before Virgo could push the plunger. "Stop! Doctor Virgo, don't even think about it!"

Cobra dropped his head back and groaned at the unfairness of it all. Of course Jellal would show up right then. He was about to have an amazing reveal with the patient's disease being treated based on his hunch! But, no! Of _course_ the Dean of Medicine would come and muck it all up! "Everything's fine here, Doctor Fernandez," he sighed. "Doctor Marvell over here just needed some consoling, because we're about to cure her wife of-"

"I don't care what you think you're doing," Jellal snarled. "Cobra this is beyond crazy. You have to have consent from next of kin to do this, and based on Doctor Loke over here practically pinning a med student to the wall, I'm going to say that condition has _not_ been met."

"Semantics," Cobra scoffed. "Wendy, stare at me as though I'm about to kill your wife if you consent." He turned to find her glaring at him with enough malice to make his asshole tighten just a hair. Shit, she was actually a touch frightening when she wanted to be. Still, he smirked at Jellal. "See? She's consented."

"I do not," Wendy snapped. "You're the best doctor I know, but she's not just some rando off the street! She's my wife, and-"

Cobra sighed again and walked closer to the bed to look down at their patient. Her lips were cracked from the lack of moisture - and he knew that Wendy hadn't been putting any lip balm on her because they had to rule out environmental factors.

Chelia wasn't conscious, but she reflexively licked her lips. That was when he noticed it. His indigo eye narrowed at the small cut on the side of her tongue. It was innocuous, really, but it was something worth looking into. Because if this was really part of the diagnosis, then that changed things.

"- don't ignore me!" Wendy shrieked.

Cobra's eye burned with glee as he looked at her again. "Does she have seizures?"

Wendy's mouth snapped shut, and she nodded. "She had seizures when we were kids," she said. "But she hasn't had any in years."

"Ten to one, she had a seizure, and bit her tongue," Cobra said. "Test her for Epstein-Barr. If it's there, then she's got CVID." He walked away from his team, and squeezed between Jellal and the door jamb to slip out.

"And if there's no Epstein-Barr?" Jellal asked, scowling after him just as Wendy broke free from Loke's hold.

"It's there," he said. Cobra strolled down the corridor with a smirk on his face. Hadn't he told Wendy that it was Mono in the beginning? Well, he hadn't been too far off from the real diagnosis. If only people listened to him more often.

He wasn't going to tell anyone that he was glad Jellal had stopped them. That injection would have fucked things up in a royal way.

Oh well… all's well that ends well, he supposed.

* * *

 **Like I said in the first chapter,** _ **House**_ **is my basis for the medical things in this story. There were two things pulled from the show and used in this chapter.**

 **1\. "Tests take time. Treatment's quicker"** **is from S1Ep3, "Occam's Razor." I was rewatching the show recently, and that quote popped up. I knew I had to use it somewhere in this story.**

 **2\. The illness Chelia has. More specifically, her diagnosis. I went into this chapter knowing that I wanted the patient (who later ended up being Chelia, who then also became Wendy's wife - for those who are interested in how I decided on who the patient was) to have something like Mono. I did a little research to see what causes Mono, and when I saw Epstein-Barr, I recognized it from being mentioned in the show. So I went on a hunt for final diagnoses that matched up. In S1Ep17 "Role Model," a politician has a whole slew of issues, and it turns out he had a seizure and bit his tongue, then contracted EBV which set everything else off.**

 **We'll be getting one more chapter in this story during CoLu Week 2019.**

 **Tomorrow's prompt will appear in the newly created _Heavy Price_ (from CoLu Week 2017) story here on FFnet.**


	3. CoLu Week 2019: Day 7, Resonant

**A/N: And we're finally back for Day 7 of CoLu Week! Sorry for the delay.** _ **Heavy Price**_ **refused to be ignored until it was complete.**

 **You guys can thank** _ **indraaas**_ **for helping me plot this chapter out, like, a year ago… When I first started working on this story. And** _ **MadSoullessQueen**_ **for giving me the spark of inspiration for part of this chapter.**

 **Also, I happened to finish writing this just a few hours after posting the epilogue for** _ **Heavy Price**_ **. I waited to post it to avoid spamming inboxes with updates, though. Gotta make sure you guys have time to read everything, right?**

* * *

 **CoLu Week 2019  
Day 7  
** _ **Resonant**_

* * *

"You're a fucking toolbag," Cobra hissed, glaring at Jellal with everything he was worth. "You realize, this could kill my patient!"

"I realize that if you weren't one of the best doctors in my hospital, I would've thrown you to the curb for talking to your _boss_ that way," Jellal sighed. He didn't look up from his paperwork, continuing to sign off on bullshit that Cobra just didn't care about. It wasn't about his patient, so it didn't matter.

"This is absolutely ridiculous," Cobra snarled. "You can't just-"

"I can," Jellal said. He set down his pen, lacing his fingers together in the power move of all power moves while he finally looked at his fuming Head of Diagnostics. "You don't run this hospital. I do. And when I say that you can't just rearrange the MRI schedule to suit your needs, I mean just that."

"So you're _banning me_ from-"

"I am," Jellal said. "Put your request in, through the _proper_ channels, and it'll be dealt with accordingly. On _my_ schedule. That includes not bullying the technicians, just so you're aware. End of story."

"My patient-"

"You don't really care about the patient," Jellal said, smirking at him. "Don't pretend you do."

Cobra had a great number of choice phrases he'd been saving for a day like this. Sure, it might actually get him fired, but he was damn well going to give Jellal the ass-widening he'd been begging for with his snippy little fucking attitude.

The door to Jellal's office slammed open, much as it had when Cobra had stormed in twenty minutes prior after finding out that he wasn't allowed to use the fucking MRI to diagnose his patient, and Lucy stood in the doorway with a scowl on her face and silver glitter covering her head and shoulders.

Cobra turned, his eye widening when he saw the Look of Death she was giving him. Fuck. Did that mean she'd finally gone back to her office? And she happened to find the bucket of glitter he'd propped up on top of the door, rigging it to spill all over her…

"Erik-" she began.

"Lucy, I can explain-" he sputtered.

"-Monroe-"

Oh, fuck. She pulled out the middle name.

"-Vivas!"

His whole name. Just came tumbling right out of her fucking face. Just like that. He was ten seconds from shitting himself as she stomped closer, glitter trailing behind her with every heavy step from her sensible two-inch royal blue heels.

"You will clean up this god-forsaken mess this instant, or so help me, I will rain hell down on you and your children, and your children's children!" she shrieked.

He knew for a fact, based on his long-standing friendship with Lucy that spanned more than a decade, that it was a bad idea to say anything other than Y _es, ma'am_. He knew that. Still, his mouth decided to try and get him killed. "Go for it," Cobra said, "But we both know that my potential offspring will be the assholes running Hell. I doubt you'd be able to terrorize them."

She'd joked before that if he ever ended up impregnating some poor, unfortunate soul with his demonic DNA, the four fucking horsemen of the Apocalypse would show up to pat him on the back. Lucifer himself would more than likely start serenading his hellspawn at their birth.

"You wanna repeat that?" she hissed. His eye went wide when Lucy's hands became talons that attached themselves to the front of his grey blazer. Not really, but her grip was so strong that he questioned whether _she_ was actually one of the denizens of Hell. "There's a trail of glitter leading here from my office, and I have no problems covering it with your blood trail!"

"Jesus fucking Christ!" he yelped as she shook him.

"He can't help you now!"

Jellal's jaw dropped when Cobra wriggled out of his blazer, leaving it in Lucy's hands, then ducked under her arm and ran out into the main hospital. Lucy turned on her heels with more dexterity than she should have had in shoes like that, and rushed after Cobra. "What… even…"

Cobra ignored the nurses and patients and technicians he darted around through the halls of the hospital. He could hear her coming closer. "How are you running so fast?" he bellowed.

"You're dead when I catch you!"

He probably should have given her an apology of some sort. Cobra rounded a corner, gasping when he slipped on the recently waxed floor. He slid across the floor and bumped into the wall, scrambling to his feet once again as soon as he got his bearings. The elevator was just there at the end of the corridor. He could make it to safety! The sound of her heels clacking on the tile disappeared. He shouldn't have been relieved. He should have looked behind him to see if she'd fallen as well.

He should have known that she'd cheat.

Something sharp and heavy hit the back of his head, sending Cobra tumbling to the floor right in front of the nurses' station. It took a moment to right himself, and when he was up on his hands and knees, his gaze settled on an innocuous little shoe. Royal blue suede. Two-inch heel.

What the fuck…

Her steps thundered down the hall, heavy and steady, moving her closer to his prone, immobile ass far too quickly.

"Did you throw a fucking shoe at me?" he mumbled, rolling onto his back. It took a moment for his vision to clear, but when it did, Lucy was standing over him, her breaths heaving and her carefully styled hair, a complete, glittery mess.

"Hold my fucking shoes," she spat, throwing the other at his face. Cobra barely had time to lift his hands and catch it.

He squawked when she grabbed his legs, digging beneath his pants to get a solid grip on his ankles, and started dragging him down the hall. Through the trail of glitter she'd left on her mad journey to Jellal's office. "What the hell?" he yelled. "Lucy, let go of me!"

She hefted his legs higher on her hips. "Dr. Loke, hold the elevator!"

The nearby nurses tittered when one of Cobra's backstabbing lackeys listened to her, holding his arm over the elevator door until she was able to drag Cobra into it. Odd, why was he wearing scrubs? Was there a surgery Cobra didn't know about?

"Heartfilia, it's ready." Cobra's eye widened when Virgo came speed-walking toward them from down the hall. Why was she also in scrubs? Virgo rarely participated in surgeries, unless she really had to.

He didn't trust them one bit. It was evident in the way he started struggling against Lucy's hold on his legs. But she was already pulling him into the elevator.

"What the fuck are you doing?!" he roared.

Lucy dropped his legs and, within seconds, Loke and Virgo had him pinned. Lucy snatched her shoes from him, then stepped backwards out of the elevator.

Her smile was chilling as the door slid shut. Outside of the elevator, the nurses waited with bated breath. There was a muffled, but no less audible, scream followed by pounding of some sort. And when the door slid open again, the light in the elevator was hanging down, and Loke, Virgo, and Cobra were covered in a mound of gold and silver glitter.

"Payback," Lucy said, crossing her arms over her chest. "You have such a wonderful team."

"Wh-What the hell?!" Cobra shouted, kicking Loke off of his legs. He could feel the glitter everywhere. The betrayal stung almost as much as the crafting horror somehow scraping against his scrotum.

Oh, he was going to get her back for this. Tenfold.

Wendy came rushing down the hall with a file in her hand, then stopped dead in her tracks when she saw the anarchy that had consumed the corridor. Cobra crawled out of the elevator, shaking glitter from his hair. Lucy laughed and put her shoes back on. "Um, Doctor Cobra?"

"What?!"

"I-I got the patient a contrast MRI," she squeaked. "I-I thought you'd wanna know…"

He stormed over to her and snatched the file from her hands, then read the latest test results. His stomach sank right into the very depths of hell. He read it twice, just to be sure, then turned to Lucy.

"Any other snarky comments?" she asked with a smirk.

Cobra's lips thinned, then he shoved the file into her chest and stormed off, leaving little specks of shining glitter in his wake.

Lucy frowned at his back, then read the file. "Oh…"

"It's cancer, right?" Wendy whispered. When Lucy nodded, she turned to watch Cobra disappear around a corner. "If he doesn't care about the patients, why does he seem upset about this?"

Loke came up beside her and placed a glittery hand on her shoulder. He smiled softly when her wide, innocent eyes turned to him. "Cobra's complicated," he said. "Cancer means his job's done. He got the diagnosis, and there's no cure."

"It's more than that," Lucy sighed, shaking her head. "Damn, tumors in the spinal cord…" She turned to Virgo, the one she could trust the most out of all of Cobra's team. "Take this over to my office, and have the nurses transfer him to the Oncology ward as soon as possible. We'll need to be aggressive, and I have to meet with him soon."

Virgo nodded and rushed off, glitter be damned, to do as Lucy asked.

"Loke…"

"Yeah," he sighed, catching the odd look in her eyes. He turned to Wendy with a gentle smile. "Let's head down to the surgical suites, okay? You could do with an observation or two."

Once they were gone, Lucy made her way down the hall, following the trail Cobra had left behind. She found him in his office, sitting in his chair and bouncing a ball off the far wall. She sighed and closed the door, then pulled the blinds shut so no one in the hall would be able to see inside. Just for good measure, she locked the door, too. His team wouldn't be around for a while, she already knew, but still. It would help him relax.

Next, she turned off the lights. It was still early enough in the day that sunlight streamed through the windows. But anyone walking by his office would think he was gone.

Lucy slid her shoes off by the door and walked over to his desk. "Cobra?"

"You should be dealing with the patient," he muttered. Cobra spun his chair so he was facing away from her.

She hated it when he did that. He'd been doing it ever since college, when he didn't want to be bothered. It took months of them being roommates for her to decide that she was the exception to his _Leave me the fuck alone, or I'll blackmail you into ruin_ rule. He hadn't been happy about it, but he'd eventually agreed.

"Aren't you curious how Wendy got the MRI done?" she asked, standing beside him. The ball bounced against the wall again, and he caught it without looking.

"What matters is that it got done."

"You're not even gonna go back to Jellal and gloat about how you subverted his overlord ruling?" Lucy sighed when he simply sunk lower into his chair. She glanced down and smiled when she saw how much glitter was still on his face, and in his hair. "Talk to me."

He stared off into space, still tossing the ball against the wall, as Lucy rummaged in his desk. The soft crinkle of plastic preceded her stepping in front of him. The ball bounced off her head, unnoticed, when she leaned down and started wiping his face off with a wet wipe. His vision was filled with her gently smiling lips and tired eyes.

Cobra frowned. "You're not sleeping enough."

"Don't turn this back on me," she said.

"Your makeup is doing fuck all to hide those bags," he said softly. His fingers brushed across hers before she could wipe across his scarred cheek, and he met her gaze squarely. "What's wrong?"

Lucy just shook her head at him. "You first," she countered.

Cobra sighed out a deep and heavy breath, and his head tipped back onto his chair. Lucy leaned over him a little more. He rolled his eye at her. "Come here, moron," he muttered. His hands wrapped around her hips, and he pulled her right into his lap. She laughed quietly and pulled her legs up, then wriggled her butt just to dig her bony ass into his leg. Just like she always did.

If anyone saw them like this, he'd never hear the end of it. People would talk about how he must have corrupted her in some way, convinced her to cheat on her husband with him. But that just wasn't the case. Lucy was just his friend. And she just so happened to be the only person he was comfortable with letting into her personal space at any given time. As her legs draped over his and she leaned a little more heavily against his chest, his arms wrapped around her hips.

Touching her waist would've made this weird.

"You were telling me what's wrong," she prodded.

Cobra scowled at her, then closed his eye as she continued wiping as much glitter as she could from his skin. "Cancer's too easy," he finally said. "Everything gets tied up in a neat little bow when it's cancer. Back pain? Cancer. Fatigue? Cancer. Bowel or urinary issues? Cancer. Hell, a fucking cough could be because of his spinal cancer metastasizing out into his fucking lungs."

"That's not that common, you know," she said.

"He's a smoker," he said. "40 years. If he doesn't have lung cancer, too, I'll be surprised."

"So you're upset because it's not something else?" she asked.

"Every time it ends with cancer, the puzzle's gone," he said. "All the work that's gone into it before that diag-fucking-nosis is wasted, because… It was just cancer."

"It's usually a death sentence," she said sadly.

"I don't even mean that," he sighed. "There's no final twist. It doesn't go from acting like Sarcoidosis to blastomycosis. We don't have that scramble to solve it. It's stupid fucking cancer. And now he's either gonna live or die based on how his body reacts to any number of fucking chemo treatments. It's done."

"But it's not done the way you'd hoped," she said, nodding when he was silent. "Well, I don't know what to tell you, hun. When it's cancer, it's cancer."

"Gee, thanks…" His eye narrowed after a moment. She set down the wet wipe on his desk and smiled at him. "Now, about this no sleeping thing."

It was Lucy's turn to look anywhere but at the person talking to her. Cobra spun in his chair again, then grabbed a wet wipe and started rubbing it across her face. Lucy gasped and tried to pull back, but he held her still.

"Fuck your makeup," he said. "Talk."

Her cheeks puffed out in a large sigh. "I'm not talking about it during the work day," she said. "Drinks after work?"

"What kind of drinks?" He chuckled quietly when she glared at him. "I just mean, are these bar drinks, or is my good whisky coming out?"

"Bar," she said. "It's not _that_ serious."

"You'd tell me if it was," he said. He didn't need to ask. All he had to do was remind her that she was sworn, as his one and only friend, to tell him everything that was wrong in her fucking life. His soap operas could only do so much. Sometimes, he wanted that little smattering of human interaction and drama.

"I'd tell you," she said, nodding.

"Damn straight."

"Now, how did you get your MRI privileges revoked for two weeks, and why did Wendy come begging me to switch my patient's MRI slot with her?" Lucy asked.

Cobra laughed and tossed the crumpled, drying wipe into the wastebasket. That explained how they'd gotten the test done while he'd been trying to get a rise out of Jellal. And why she'd been heading to her office when she was supposed to be overseeing some little teenage boy's first MRI. "Well, you see, I might have flipped the schedule around a little bit on the CT scanner. And the pharmacy. And the clinic. And-"

"Cobra, you didn't," she groaned. Still she smiled at him when he gave her a cheeky grin. "You're hopeless!"

"Yeah, well, Jellal got his panties in a twist over it."

Her smile turned decidedly evil a moment later. "You should find him some… untwistable panties, then. To help avoid chafing, of course."

"Oh, I love that brain of yours," he cackled. Yes, this was going to be fabulous. He just needed to do a little internet search, and hope he wouldn't have to pay too much for shipping. He'd dropped a pretty penny on the glitter bombs in her office. Cobra froze after a moment, staring at her in horror. "You only stopped at the door in your office, right?"

"Yeah, why?"

Through the wall, there was a masculine shriek, followed by a thoroughly agitated, "Cobra!"

"Was that Jellal?" she asked, then squeaked when Cobra threw a hand over her mouth.

"I'm guessing he was looking for you in your office," he breathed. Cobra held her tightly and slid down to the floor, then dragged her under his desk. "You only got the first wave. There was a pulley system. Think tarred and feathered… with Elmer's."

"Cobra, you're dead!" Jellal roared as he stormed down the hall. Sadly, Cobra didn't get to the see the rainbow plumage covering his face and chest. Not in person, at least. He had to wait for one of the nurses on the floor to send it to him.

The picture was set as his computer background for six months, and made a debut on the hospital newsletter. Cobra got thirty extra clinic hours for the newsletter stunt.

* * *

 **Thanks so much for being patient with me on this, guys!**

 **Day 8 of CoLu Week 2019 will be posted in** _ **You're Still the One**_ **, but it's a doozy of a chapter. You'll probably have to wait a few days for it to get written.**


End file.
